In an office on the first floor of Dwinelle Hall, the California Language Archive keeps history alive. As the largest archive of Indigenous language research in North America, the program serves as a resting place for decades of research and field notes conducted on California’s numerous Indigenous languages, many of which are critically endangered or with no living speakers remaining today. The archive’s work not only maintains information about languages that can’t be found anywhere else in the world, but also serves as a reminder of the American government’s discriminatory policies and the near extinction of a diverse linguistic landscape. In investigating this painful history and the current status of these languages, UC Berkeley pays respect to Indigenous history while encouraging their revitalization and reintegration into their respective communities.
It’s no accident that an archive of Indigenous languages is based in California, the most linguistically diverse state in the United States. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, California was home to over 90 Indigenous languages and a third of North America’s language families. The state’s density in supply of natural resources allowed for close contact between various languages and cultures without the need for frequent movement and relocation. This created the ideal conditions for cross-linguistic interaction, transformation, and the creation of entirely distinct language families. Since 1946, the California Language Archive has collaborated with tribal communities and linguists to preserve transcriptions and elicitations of these languages dating back to 1901.
The knowledge collected by researchers during these early stages involved dialect surveys and elicitations of languages from elderly Native people who had lived their lives relatively unexposed to English. Researchers at UC Berkeley were tasked with documenting the vocabulary, syntax, morphology, and sounds of scarcely studied languages and mapping California’s linguistic landscape. Much of this research occurred prior to the advent of modern recording devices, so researchers adapted by recording songs and other elicitations requiring sound in wax cylinders. By having the speaker recite their story into an amplifying device, the sound of their voice could become preserved into grooves on the wax, producing a replayable recording. Using this method, over 100 hours of elicitations were saved in 3,000 cylinders, which are currently kept in the archive, sent to Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, or shared with tribal members for the purposes of language revitalization and reclamation.
Linguists’ mounting interest in Indigenous languages during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries came far too late. The federal government was persistent in its hostile and discriminatory mission to assimilate Indigenous people into White American society by demanding they abandon their tribal affiliations, and with it their cultural heritage at the core of their identities. One particular approach the federal government took to achieve this goal was the forced suppression of Indigenous language use and proliferation. The main predictor of language death is the slowing or stopping of intergenerational transmission, or when people cease to teach their language to future generations. A reprehensible method applied by the federal government was the implementation of boarding schools, which were formally permitted via the 1819 Civilization Fund Act. This Congressional act allowed for the kidnapping of Indigenous children from their families and communities to be enrolled in English-only boarding schools operated by Christian missionaries with the intention of “civilizing” them. Within these schools, children were subjected to repeated physical and sexual abuse, and punished for speaking their heritage languages or engaging with their cultures.
English-only boarding schools interrupted intergenerational transmission and drove many languages to near extinction, but they also left deep and irreversible traumas on Indigenous people. The federal government’s violent and dehumanizing transgressions uprooted generations of tradition and community, pushing the narrative that Indigenous culture or any lifestyle different from the mainstream was a source of shame. American society had an idealized vision for its future in which Indigenous culture and remembrance had no place.
Shame lingers to hide what can’t be ignored or erased. In this way, the California Language Archive and its role in language revitalization tells a story of undeniable tragedy, but also resilience. The data compiled by the archive and others like it serve as the foundation for revitalization efforts, which are taken on by individuals and communities seeking to resume the education and use of their languages. One such example is the Master Apprentice Learning Program facilitated by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS). In this program, a fluent mentor and a language learner are paired and work closely together for weeks to learn the language in context. This not only encourages language acquisition, but also builds community bonds that create the need for continued language use. The AICLS also facilitates the Family Language Program where families hoping to learn a language together turn the home into a learning environment called a language nest. In this learning model, families designate a room in the house where all interactions are conducted solely in the target language. This includes narrating the activities that take place to introduce common vocabulary and simple sentence structures into daily use. For example, a family that designates the kitchen as a language nest might narrate the process of making toast or doing the dishes. These methods crucially acknowledge that culture and heritage are inextricably intertwined with continued, consistent language use, thus reviving languages and the communities that use them.
All languages are inherently valuable and worth our attention even if they don’t serve an immediate social or economic utility. The federal government’s stance shifted to resemble this perspective with the passage of the Native American Languages Act (1990). The act pledges support to Indigenous language revitalization efforts and the right of Native people to express themselves in their native languages. The legislation affirmed the right of Indigenous language users to have their voices heard, and until Executive Order 14224, was the only official stance the federal government has taken on language use. Today, Alaska, Hawaii, and South Dakota have Indigenous languages as their co-official languages, along with English. Unlike before, policy is changing to accommodate Indigenous existence and not the other way around. However, it’s clear that there is still more work to be done to meet the needs of California’s Indigenous residents and uplift Native communities. Organizations such as the California Language Archive affirm that through language maintenance and community engagement, we can construct environments where all cultures are preserved, valued, and respected.
Featured Image Source: Arctic Council